A Happy and Prosperous New Year from Agile Institute!

The Times Square Ball in July.

Agile Institute had a wonderfully successful 2012. My thanks to all the clients and colleagues, commentators and critics (yes, even the critics) who made the year so amazing.

Personally, I was likely the busiest I've ever been, but it was the kind of busy that keeps me energized and enthusiastic. Most of my year was spent traveling the country delivering courses and coaching to various clients, both huge and tiny.  I visited Manhattan, NY, and Manhattan, KS; huge multinationals, and tiny start-ups.  Everywhere I go, there is enthusiasm for better ways to build software.

Interestingly,  Essential Test-Driven Development was by far the most frequently requested course, followed by Essential Agile Principles & Practices. I'm hopeful that XP engineering practices aka Scrum Developer Practices are now getting some recognition. They are necessary when organizations want to get beyond mediocre results, or painful challenges to their productivity.

We also developed two new courses in 2012:

Essential Test-Driven Development in JavaScript

Yep, our trusty old flagship TDD course is now available in JavaScript, as well as Java, C#, C++, and VisualBasic.NET. This course addresses those unit-testing/TDD challenges that are particularly vexing in JavaScript: DOM manipulation, asynchronous updates with AJAX, page-embedded code.
 

Essential Agile Product Leadership

Up until now, this course had been something I would either outsource to a trusted colleague, or deliver myself using licensed materials. That was until one exceptionally intriguing client asked me to customize the course for an executive steering committee. I decided to start from scratch.

I tested an open-source game with a friendly group of colleagues at the Agilistry, and it proved not to be quite what I needed.  Elisabeth Hendrickson and Dale Emery encouraged me to build something on my own, and stayed with me at the Agilistry until late into the night, brain-storming ideas for a portfolio-planning simulation.

This course still has much that is oriented towards the Scrum "Product Owner." What differentiates the Agile Institute course is a suite of modules and activities that address challenging leadership decisions regarding portfolio planning, customer relations, innovation, and business value models. In its new form, this course has only been delivered once, but received excellent ratings.

For more information regarding our courses, write me at Rob [dot] Myers [at] Agile Institute [dot] com, or take a look at our selection on the courses page.

A Canadian client takes pity on me.